Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 8-2009 Blue Skin, Yellow Flesh Candace Wiley Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Wiley, Candace, "Blue Skin, Yellow Flesh" (2009). All Theses. 638. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/638 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BLUE SKIN, YELLOW FLESH A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts English by Candace G. Wiley August 2009 Accepted by: Dr. Keith Morris, Committee Chair Dr. Rhondda Thomas Dr. Brian McGrath ABSTRACT Set in November 2009 in the United States South, Blue Skin, Yellow Flesh will eventually cover eleven days and will be separated into two parts—before and after Thecla’s funeral. It begins the Tuesday after Thecla dies and ends the day after Thanksgiving. The major conflict involves Thecla’s death, how it affects her family, and how the family deals with the concept of family. Other important conflicts are Tam and Lynn’s marriage, JoJo’s sexual orientation, Lynn’s affect on her children, and Julius’s trek toward death. This novel excerpt consists of seven chapters, submitted in partial fulfillment of Clemson University’s Master of Arts degree in English Literature. ii DEDICATION For my grandparents, whom I hope this novel excerpt honors, for the rest of my family (biological and adopted), for Angelica, my sister who put me on a fast, which started the first chapter. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS John Warner, thank you very much for your guidance, encouragement, and honesty and for giving me an extraordinary first fiction workshop experience. Your workshop instilled in me a high expectation for my writing and taught me the commandments of a workshop experience—respect for both art and artist. Thank you, Dr. Rhondda Thomas, for inspiring some of the subject matter and voices in my thesis, through intelligent and invigorating coursework and by making me work diligently for an A and for never taking second best. Dr. Alma Bennett, thank you for the fire you strategically placed under me with which you promoted excellence. For stepping in when you were most needed and for being such a great reader, I especially would like to thank you, Dr. Brian McGrath. Dr. Keith Morris, thank you for working so closely with me throughout this project and making me think more like a writer, a reader, and an editor. Thank you for sharing your publishing experience with me, which reminds me that mine is an achievable goal. Finally, thanks to the Scarf Club—Nick M., Mari R., John B., John S., Russell H., and Kelly N. Our own little Bloomsbury without the sex . and the mermaids. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TITLE PAGE....................................................................................................................i ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION............................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................iv INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................1 EPIGRAPH....................................................................................................................12 ACTION .......................................................................................................................13 BREATH OF LIFE .......................................................................................................24 OUR KIDS ....................................................................................................................35 SLEEP OVER ...............................................................................................................42 COFFEE HOUSE .........................................................................................................50 PROFILE ......................................................................................................................67 CHEMISTRY LESSON ...............................................................................................78 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................92 WORKS CONSULTED ...............................................................................................93 v INTRODUCTION Form As I built this narrative, form was a major concern. In the early writing stages, I considered structuring the work similarly to Winesburg, Ohio and Cane. Each chapter would present the perspective of a different character and the only common links among the stories would be time, place, relation, and theme. However, I decided that a more closely structured narrative would most benefit my story. In Gloria Naylor’s Bailey’s Café and Women of Brewster Place, the close relationship that the characters have with each other and the slightly more explicit narrative arc appealed to me. Women of Brewster Place was Gloria Naylor’s first novel and at the time, she said that she could not see herself writing a whole novel, so she would write one character’s story at a time. Each character was given his or her own chapter. I shared these sentiments and intended to start in this vein, but my first chapter broke the mold immediately. I can only say that Blue Skin, Yellow Flesh is inspired by that format even though Action, Sleep Over, and Coffee House do not strictly adhere to Naylor’s structural rules because they contain more than one perspective. The Blues Throughout the stories, I experiment with a blue motif, by associating the color with contrasting images and foil-like characters. For example, Roadog’s blue tongue in Chris’s ruined dream balances Emma’s blue sequins in Tam’s dream deferred; the blue sky that prevents Lynn from reaching God counters with the shattering blue cell phone light which brings Tam back to the reality of his basement and his damaged marriage and 1 counters with the blue police lights JoJo sees downtown, which bring out her insecurities and encourage her to draw comfort from Jamie; Lynn as a blue nose and mouth, which indicates that the drug is in control at that moment and shows that her lack of control brings a lack of wholeness, balance, and humanity, contrasts with Thecla’s blue Sunday outfit, since Thecla is associated with careful thinking, responsible behavior, and family guidance, and also contrasts JoJo’s blue dress in her A Honor Roll picture, which reinforces the idea of family and self-improvement. Linking the color with such differing images and circumstances lends itself to a multiplicity of readings of the complexity of the motif. The meaning of the color in one instance is transformed in another. Like the improvisational nature of Blues music, the color blue in this novel excerpt keeps changing and reinventing itself; but also like the music, the subsequent uses or meanings associated with the color do not antiquate the previous uses or meanings. Thus, each blue image works with the others to create a whole picture of the blues. Even in the title, blue surfaces. Blue Skin, Yellow Flesh refers to blue plums, which unites my blue motif and my epigraph. It is also a signification of Black Skin, White Masks, but rather than discussing the assimilation attempts of the parts of the African Diaspora that suffer from internalized racism and marginality, my book attempts to explore behavior that is caused by the human condition: the circumstances in the story are not limited to a particular race. So while the blue in Blue Skin could mean blue-black, it could also mean blue blood. And blue blood has differing meanings—light skinned black people or a person of noble birth. Thus, in the title, the reader should see that the concern of the stories is not simply skin pigmentation, but also flesh—humanity. 2 Continuing in this way, race is not the central concern of the novel as it has been in previous black arts movements. Blue Skin, Yellow Flesh is about race at times, but it is not always about race. I like to believe that a matriarch of any ethnicity could have a conversation about President Obama as Thecla does. I chose to hope that any young child can empathize with an enslaved person like Pentel does. Race is not the simple cause of any situations or motivations in my text. Although there are racial concerns in the excerpt and a key concern of mine is the function of my art, it is not limited to or by race. In fact, the narrator does not assign race until the last story, Chemistry Lesson. Past in Present Blue Skin, Yellow Flesh is an excerpt in which I hope all readers will be able to see remnants or possibilities of their own personal histories. When I say personal history, I mean it in terms of Salman Rushdie’s use of the concept in Midnight’s Children. One’s personal history goes back generations and trickles down through progeny regardless of intent or relation. Thus, by considering the older generation, I can use a family and community’s history to implicitly show the influence